What Matters
by VickyVicarious
Summary: After seeing Ema in tears after failing her forensic science exam again, Klavier includes a hidden track on his new album just for her.


**Prompt:** Ema always acts like she doesn't care that she didn't make forensics, but one night, Klavier finds her crying somewhere in the police station. He never says anything about it, but on his next album, the secret track is a solo acoustic song about never giving up on your dreams. Everyone comments on how uncharacteristically gentle the song is and wonders why he wrote it. Up to anon how it ends.

* * *

Ema hated the fop. He was a pretty, shallow fool - or at least, that's what he looked like. He was an imbecile, he didn't care about justice at all - or at least, that's what she told herself before ever meeting him, when all his name meant was the prosecutor who lost Phoenix his badge. She couldn't _help_ but hate him for that, before they saw each other for the first time.

After working with him for years, some of the reasons changed. He was still too glamorous, too flirty and lighthearted. He wasn't the kind of serious, formal prosecutor she preferred. Too much of the time it felt like he was playing a game, like the law was just a diversion to him while his true passion was showing off for his fans onstage. Only felt like - she knew better, now. Was forcibly reminded on occasion, that Klavier really did _care_. He believed in the law and the part he played in upholding it, he believed in doing the right thing and he was convinced that's what he'd always done. He was considerate of witnesses and didn't play around with evidence. He accepted when it didn't match his views and was willing to change them, rather than the evidence, to fit. He was a good prosecutor, especially these days when they were so far and few between.

More than that, he was probably a good man. Ema couldn't stand the way he acted, but it was never inappropriate. He was flirty but not out of bounds. He had his rockstar quirks, for sure, but none of the worst ones. He was respectful of his fans, very willing to do favors for his friends or even just acquaintances, he was arrogant but not blindingly so. He _aggravated_ her, because she had such a short temper these days and he was there and she was in the habit of hating him, and when he was nice it made it harder to hate him completely and that just made her _madder_. It probably wasn't fair to him but Ema really didn't care.

He was just so - he had _everything_ and that was unfair enough. He deserved someone who hated him, because everywhere else all he got was fawning attention that she couldn't even rightfully call undeserved. Klavier was as talented a musician as he was a prosecutor. He was smart and what's more he was clever and what's more he was skilled and not to mention he was beautiful with a voice to match, he loved his work completely, _both_ his works. His success was deserved, in both careers.

He had all that success, in both careers. And meanwhile, Phoenix was miserable, grunging out a living with his true purpose stolen from him, and still he kept trying to right so many wrongs. Things that wouldn't have been wrong in the first place if Klavier hadn't thought he was doing the right thing. And Ema was _stuck_ here, it'd been years now and still she kept _failing_ , she couldn't do anything to change what happened to Phoenix, she couldn't get where she wanted to be, Lana was still in prison and too often it felt like she was struggling entirely alone. Maybe she was too stupid. Maybe she just should stop even _trying_ , she'd seen enough to know how terrible the world was, to know that fairytale endings never happened. Her happiest ending yet, the best thing she'd ever achieved, ended with Lana in jail and her being shipped off to Europe for years. People like Klavier got everything and maybe she should just _accept that_ and stop trying to change things when clearly she just wasn't goddamn _capable -_

"Ah, Fraulein Detective. Sorry, I didn't see- ...What's wrong?"

And, of course, _he'd_ be the one to find her. Ema swiped a hand over her face - and tugged her sunglasses down over her eyes too, for good measure before she looked up. Klavier's face was tinted pink through the lenses, but concern had his brow furrowed in a rare wrinkle.

"Nothing," Ema said, and stood up off the stair she'd been sitting on. "Just examining the staircase for blood splatters. You never know. Anyway, don't you have actual work to be doing, or are you too busy preening for your adoring fans?"

Klavier tilted his head and smiled softly. "I just finished my allotted preening for today, actually. I'm all yours if you need, Fraulein - I've been told I have quite an ear for notes out of tune."

Ema sniffed. She shoved her hands into her pockets in search of a Snackoo to distract her, but she was out, and it was somehow difficult to muster up the usual rage without them. At least, it was when Klavier was smiling down at her like he actually wanted to help, and in her hand was proof that there was no _point-_

"Whoever told you that was an idiot," she said bluntly. Her voice was more sad than anything, this time. The things Phoenix suspected of Kristoph... even what had happened to Phoenix in the first place, even her own hatred that always seemed to amuse him more than anything, like he thought it was all just banter, like no one could ever hate _him_ (because no one did, because he was perfect) - Klavier was definitely not so great at detecting the things going wrong around him as he thought. "Or maybe your ears are all right, but your eyes are totally useless."

Ema shoved past him on her way down the staircase, sniffing again but holding her head high. She shoved the crumpled paper in her hand into his chest as she passed, and he reached up instinctively to take it. His fingers closed warm around hers for a second before she jerked her hand back.

She heard the rustling as he uncrumpled the letter, but she didn't stop walking, turning the corner at the landing and heading down the next set of stairs.

"Oh," he said a moment later, voice low and let-down. "I - but you've been studying so hard."

Ema's breath caught. He'd seen her, she knew he had, she hadn't made any effort to hide either her ambition or her work to achieve it, and wasn't that just _stupid_ of her. As stupid as the naive little rockstar prosecutor above her, sounding _surprised_ that she'd failed again. Just because he'd achieved everything he ever dreamed before even reaching drinking age didn't mean that was true for anyone else. Sure. She'd been studying endlessly, at home and in every spare moment at work, too. She'd been working her ass off and she'd still failed for a fourth time and when she got the letter she'd thrown her review book in the trashcan by her desk and then gone and sat in the staircase and cried.

"That's not what matters," Ema said dully, and kept walking.

 **-xxx-**

The new CD came out a month later. It was the talk of the police department - the Gavinners had a theme going for them, after all, and the drummer worked in the building. The second guitarist too, on occasion. Plus, Gavin was such a dramatic fop that providing every single employee of the Criminal Affairs Department a free signed copy of the album was really sort of par for the course with him.

Ema didn't even bother to take hers out of her mailbox.

She left it there for two weeks while all around her, everyone had it on repeat constantly. She kept catching the tail-ends of one of the songs on the radio, or hearing the beginning beats of another as she was walking away from a conversation with a coworker and they turned their music back on. It sounded good, from what she could hear - Ema wasn't exactly a fan, but she liked their music well enough. The only reason she hated the band was because of its headliner.

But she kept hearing the conversations too, and for all the talk about how 'killer' this latest album was, or how catchy the songs were or how amazing Gavin was, a lot of discussion was devoted to the hidden track. Apparently it was wildly out of character for the band. Acoustic, for one. And completely solo - Gavin on guitar, Gavin singing. And the subject matter had nothing to do with the law, as far as people seemed to be able to tell. There were a lot of "it's not bad, just different"s and "wonder why he did it"s going around, enough that finally Ema got curious.

She took her copy of the album out of her mailbox two and a half weeks after it was released, and took it home, and listened to all the songs the full way through for the first time. They were good enough. The Gavinners were skilled artists, after all. Still, the songs on this album weren't vastly different from what they had been before: the same rock style, the same legal subject matter.

That was true, until the last song finished. There was a minute of silence, and then...

It was a slow song. Soft, in a lot of ways. No harsh beat, not even any raised voices. Just Klavier, singing alone and strumming gently on his guitar. He actually lapsed into humming several times, and it was all very - gentle. Maybe that was the word.

" _So don't tell yourself that's not what matters,_ " the voice on Ema's radio sang, and yes, gentle was definitely the word. Earnest. A little strained, some notes, but all the more sincere for it. " _because this is not the end. Don't give in, never give in._ "

Gavin was such an _idiot_.

" _You can change the world_ ," the song asserted, as Ema sat in front of her radio trying very very hard not to cry. " _I've seen what you can do, I believe in you. All you have to do, is don't give in, never give in, keep dreaming..._ "

She failed, in the end. Her cheeks were wet by the time the song ended. By the third time through, Ema was sobbing roughly into a blue badger plushie, and had to turn the volume way up to be able to hear Klavier clearly.

It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair at all, it wasn't right and it wasn't what she wanted and she hated the goddamn glimmerous fop, she hated him so _fucking_ much -

Ema listened to the song seventeen times in a row, then used a program on her computer to rip the track and separate it from the song preceding it. Then she put this single track on her phone and put her earphones on and listened to it on repeat some more on her way to the bookstore.

She bought a textbook to replace the one she'd thrown in the trash. Made sure Gavin saw her studying it the next day.

His face _lit up_ and he asked if she'd listened to his new album.

"I'm really proud of this one, it's very close to my heart," he said, all faux-casual, good god. "Did any of the songs strike a chord with you?"

Ema swallowed hard.

"I guess the one about the suspect in the sewers was okay," she said. "If I had to choose. I dunno, I didn't exactly listen close, I'm not one of your fangirls you know."

"...Ah," Klavier said. He looked a little disappointed, but only for a moment. Then he leaned in, smiled down at her all warm and heartfelt and gorgeous, said, "Well, it's nice to see you in such lively spirits again, Fraulein Detective."

Ema flushed, and nailed him in the face with a Snackoo.

"Quit leering at me, you perv!" she snapped, and stomped off, and _could not believe_ Klavier Gavin was actually so completely blind. Maybe that was why the universe was so kind to him - it was just pity, for such an oblivious hopeful nincompoop. The thought made Ema feel a little better.

" _So don't give in, never give in, hm hmm-mm-mmmn..._ " she mumbled under her breath; ducked her hand into her pocket to feel the edge of a hidden bottle of luminol.

She'd make it happen. And then she'd show that fop _lively spirits_ , all right.


End file.
